A displaced Californian composer writes about music made for the long while & the world around that music. ~
The avant-garde is flexibility of mind. — John Cage ~
...composition is only a very small thing, taken as a part of music as a whole, and it really shouldn't be separated from music making in general. — Douglas Leedy ~
My God, what has sound got to do with music! — Charles Ives

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Thought of the day

Systemic integration always comes at the price of the diversity that emerges within isolated niches. (Read the whole thing here). There is something askew with the rest of the argument, but it's a beginning.

2 comments:

'Emerges' is the first word i have trouble with. These diversified "niches" were there before hand not as a result. actually 'isolated niches' makes them sound like walled in areas like gaza or the unibomber in montana, losers or psychos. It is still a negative connotation. he is probably trying to get a job with google even though they aren't hiring. so what benefits are presented by this Systematic integration?look at the two Kennedy assassinations on Wikipedia to see the most white wash presentations of these events imaginable. The almost burying of the coroners report on the 2nd. Special interest groups are more than possible to filibuster what he would view as "systematic integration".There is an interesting tape made by James Earl Ray lawyer at Jonestown just before the slaughter there that says much about the other assassination of that period. possibly also having some play in the elimination of that 'isolated niche'.

the problem here is that, from the viewpoint of an isolated niche, the level of diversity is low (in global terms, although from one niche to another neighboring niche, the most subtle differences may be recognized), and while diversity is in the sum of the niches, the moment that a niche is attached to a network, allowing perception of the global diversity, hybridization, levelling and compromises necessarily begin.

We can buy cars with their component parts made almost anywhere, but those parts are so interchangeable that one can hardly characterize them as "diverse." The flip side is that it is now possible for an American to become a virtuoso musician in the Javanese tradition or someone from China to become virtuoso in European music. The balance between losses and gains in this process are difficult to reckon.

This is an economy with a number of paradoxical effects. I suspect that we will have to locate value, in the future, in unique and interesting mixtures of the local and the global. The Morgan motorcar, with an essentially local and handmade chassis (ash wood!) and body, but with a motor produced from a global sources, might be a useful model.